


Some Loose Ends and the Computational Error: Transparency

by pisoprano



Series: Some Loose Ends and the Computational Error: Early Chapter Postings [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-29 03:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17195483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pisoprano/pseuds/pisoprano
Summary: Ah, quantum physics.  So often science-fiction writers use it to justify anything that looks like magic.  Since I’ve got actual magic to work with, I’m not going to let any of my characters get away with using quantum physics as functional technobabble--particularly when they are in a space that is so divorced from natural laws as the Well of Lost Plots (or the JK-verse, to a lesser extent) is.  I personally find it more interesting to work within the rules of technobabble derived from fiction as a meta-concept instead of bad science (even if both are equally bogus), so I’ll keep utilizing the former.For the unaware: Schrödinger never killed cats except in a purely hypothetical exercise about quantum superposition (the idea that a particle can be in different states simultaneously, based on its probability of occurring).  The observer effect happens because on a sufficiently small scale, bouncing anything (even a photon) off the particle for measurement purposes will affect the results, as most famously seen in the Double-Slit Experiment (and contrary to popular belief, a conscious observer isn’t necessary).  Quantum entanglement (also called “spooky action at a distance”) is when two or more very small particles become so intrinsically linked that measuring one particle affects the behavior of the other, regardless of where it is.  The uncertainty principle is about how the more precise a position measurement of a particle is, the less precise you can be about the velocity measurement of that particle (and vice versa).  Just about everything weird about quantum mechanics happens at a subatomic level, so it having a direct impact on macroscopic beings is extremely unlikely.In other news, I have not forgotten about this story.  I know things are slow-going, but I refuse to let the story end until it is properly complete.  Given how frequently I've had to scrap everything and start the chapter over, I can't say when you'll get the next update, but I'll remain optimistic that it'll be soon.  Stay tuned.All my love,pisoprano





	Some Loose Ends and the Computational Error: Transparency

Lysander felt a second usage of the Cognition Spell. Since that was the signal Remus had instructed Dumbledore to perform when he’d gotten _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_ , that meant that they’d be able to get some form of communication going between the Well and Remus’ most recent reality. Before Lysander went to inform Remus of the news, however, Lysander analyzed the signature of the Cognition Spell to see how well Dumbledore had followed directions.

Lysander noted that there had been one improvement, in that there was very little idle time between the start and end of the spell. Other than that, though, it had not been ideal. Despite the fact that Remus had explicitly told Dumbledore to _not_ go poking around, it seemed that the old wizard had once again touched upon the Reintegrate function. Lysander made a quick probe of the Well to confirm that, yes, there hadn’t been any new arrivals this time either. That meant there were a few options for what had actually happened.

  1. Dumbledore thought that reintegrating someone again was necessary despite the warning.
  2. The Cognition Spell was malfunctioning with its Reintegration function.
  3. Dumbledore had used the Cognition Spell on the same person he had before, the unknown person who’d had his or her mind protected in the future.
  4. Dumbledore bequeathed his knowledge of the Cognition Spell on some hapless person who'd started casting it and who assumed that the Reintegration function was necessary.
  5. Everyone in the future had the Invisibility function turned on for reasons only Saint George knew.



Regardless of the circumstances, though, Remus needed to get brought in the loop about what happened. Lysander wasn’t in the werewolf’s presence at the moment (which, when he thought about it, was rather strange, since didn’t remember leaving) so he willed his being to be taken to Remus’ side.

“Lysander?" Remus asked. "Did you detect the Cognition Spell again?”

“Sure did,” Lysander confirmed, “but the Reintegration function was _also_ used again, so I’m honestly not sure if Dumbledore misunderstood your directions or if he happened to be casting it again without prompting from your dad. You _did_ say something along the lines of 'Warning! Do not touch unmarked spell functions!', right?”

“Let me find the exact wording,” Remus said as he pulled up _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_. He opened the volume to reread his message but was quickly distracted. “I...I assumed that everything we summoned would be a copy that conforms to how we remember it.”

“More or less,” Mr. Author confirmed--making Lysander jump, since he hadn’t realized that the man without appearance was currently around. “But there is certainly the potential for interference with other non-canonical realities. There’s a reason that I’ve ended up as you when I tried being supported by the substandard creators instead of the original creator.”

“What about my reality, could _it_ interfere with things here?” Remus asked.

“Well, we _do_ feel the aftereffects of the Cognition Spell,” Lysander pointed out. “And by ‘we’, I’m pretty sure I just mean ‘me’, since you’ve only felt the spell when Saint George prepped you with the Memory Book and when you used it on Dumbledore (neither of which properly count, since I've noticed that it feels different from inside the Well) and Mr. Author wouldn’t have had reason to open his mind to full-fledged realities since he isn't actually a time-traveler.”

“I wasn’t talking about insubstantial mental echoes coming from my universe,” Remus said. He held up the open book at Lysander’s eye level. “I’m talking about concrete changes. My dad wrote back.”

Lysander took the book and squinted at the messy scrawl that now cut across the pages: 

> _WHO IN THE NAME OF MERLIN’S FILTHY LEFT SOCK ARE YOU R.J.????_
> 
> _You appear and disappear without any warning at all_
> 
> _You put up blood wards only to let Fenrir Greyback in my house_
> 
> _You somehow got Albus Dumbledore to drive an Unspeakable completely mad in seconds_
> 
> _You are somehow responsible for causing the entire world experiencing mass amnesia_
> 
> _Twice!!_
> 
> _This book is going nowhere near Dumbledore until I know what’s really going on_

“Sounds like he thinks you’re a nutcase,” Mr. Author said over Lysander’s shoulder, making him jump yet again. He _really_ needed to get a bell or something for the Generic werewolf.

“But when I wrote to him, I didn’t think _he’d_ be able to tell _me_ that--not in any direct way,” Remus said. “This is going to drastically simplify communication and we’ll actually be able to find out what’s going on over there instead of having to guess based on what little information we _do_ have.”

“We enlightened wizards do not guess, we _theorize_ ,” Lysander corrected.

Remus dismissed the semantics, “rennervate, enervate. Not important. What _is_ important is that I might be able to actually explain to him everything--what I’m doing, maybe even who I really am.”

“You could have done that before,” Lysander pointed out.

“Not in a way that I could get nuanced feedback without relying upon Dumbledore casting a particular spell at the right moment. Besides, it looks like Dad needs to be assured before he’s willing to contact Dumbledore. That’ll be _much_ easier with two-way communication.”

“We still don’t know what happens when a person becomes aware of time travel without a time-traveler to latch upon,” Lysander said.

“Then I’ll accept your best guess--sorry, _theory_ ,” Remus corrected.

Lysander turned it over in his mind. “Well, you almost certainly aren’t going to get any new people deported to the Well, since the universe’s person-count won’t shoot up any red flags to Blair. Most likely scenario is the hour of amnesia, I’d suspect--if I hadn't felt the Cognition Spell, I'd have believed the amnesia your dad mentioned would have been because of unprotected time-travel suspicions. Which is a problem, since any messages you write will be forgotten in their entirety.”

“He could just break the important bits of information into chunks and dole them out one hour at a time,” Mr. Author suggested.

“I’ve got about half a dozen things I could tell him,” Remus said. “I’d have to make sure he’d be willing to synchronize six hours of communication time we’d need. And maybe I should make sure he can remove the curse I left on the house, so I guess that’s _seven_ hours. Lucky us.”

“He wouldn’t necessarily have to go through all the tidbits at once, as long as your dad makes note of his starting and ending times,” Mr. Author said. “Synchronization with the Well’s lack of time should not pose any difficulty as long as your dad keeps accurate minutes in my book.”

“Except that Dumbledore might be testing the Cognition Spell willy-nilly,” Lysander realized. “Any time he does so, it’ll throw off the synchronization between the timeline and the Well. Now, in a perfect world we could just have Lyall ask Dumbledore to put the Cognition Spell on hold, but I’m going to doubt that Lyall is even willing to do _that_ much at this point.”

Remus swore under his breath. “Knowing my dad, you'd probably be right about that. So how do we stop Dumbledore from casting the Cognition Spell?”

“I’m not sure,” Lysander said as he moved his fingers through his hair. “Honestly, it might not even be Dumbledore, since--if your dad’s complaints are anything to go by--it looks like he got some poor Unspeakable involved in some process that drove him to madness. Just going by context, there could be some side effect of the Reintegration function that only manifests itself outside of the Well or by some other circumstances, but it’s safe to assume that if one Unspeakable got involved with the Cognition Spell, the whole Department of Mysteries is going to analyze the living Lumos lights out of it. You know, we might be better off if we avoid the problem altogether and just go Schrödinger on this one.”

“I’m sorry, but _what_ did you just say?” Remus asked. “'Shero-dinger'?”

“He was a Muggle scientist,” Lysander explained, dredging up some knowledge he’d once gleaned from a book called _Physics for Wizards: The Crazy Things Muggles Think Are Normal_. “He used to play at killing cats by sticking one in a box that had a 50-50 shot of offing them. The way he figured it, if you haven’t opened the box, you don’t know if the cat is dead or alive so it might as well be both.”

“That is disturbing, even by Muggle standards,” Mr. Author noted.

“But what does that have to do with our current situation?” Remus asked.

Lysander smiled. “I’m the only one of us who actually notices when the Cognition Spell is even cast.  If I stay away and don’t inform you of what’s going on in your previous timeline, that information isn’t going to be synchronized with you while you’re making contact with your dad--if neither of us observes the other, both our states will be true due to the observation effect and they won’t conflict with each other.  As soon as you’re done, you can come find me and I’ll let you know if there were any spells cast that you’d have been affected by, but your actual communication protocols will remain blissfully unaffected.”

“Are you sure that the Well works like that?” Mr. Author asked. “Because I have never heard of such a thing.”

“It’s an extrapolation of the principles of quantum tangling--the Well and real versions of the _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_ book (or possibly even _any_ book) seem to be tangled up so that one affects the other through spooky distance actions.  It's all part of the principles of uncertainty.” Lysander couldn’t remember all the particulars of of Muggle physics, but he figured he was close enough that they’d be able to apply it successfully.

“First off,” Mr. Author said, “as I’ve said before, I really don’t think communication _can_ happen with anything but _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_ \--the interloper would have to live in the loonybin to consider leaving such a huge loophole.”

“Shh!” Lysander chided. “Don’t use the ‘L’ word!”

Lysander imagined that Mr. Author was furrowing his brow. “You have a problem with the word 'loophole'?”

“No, the _other_ L-word,” Lysander hissed.

“Loonybi--?”

“I said don’t use the word!”

“Alright, I won’t!” Mr. Author relented. “Original point about me being the only known authorized vector of communication still stands. And second of all, why would the Well care about anything to do with Muggle physics?”

“The interloper is a Muggle, right? Why wouldn’t she be happy to support Muggle physics? We don’t have time in the Well, but we’ve got to have _something_ that gives us a linear narrative.”

"We have 'before' and 'after'--why do we need something else?"

“Lysander going off on his own would just be a precautionary measure, right?” Remus interjected. “We don’t need his assistance for making contact with my dad, so it shouldn’t hurt anything to not have him there.”

Lysander gave an ‘I win!’ happy-dance.

“But Lysander,” Remus continued, “if my dad tells me that something went horribly wrong on his end, I won’t wait until after the full synchronization to come and find you.”

Lysander gave his two werewolf friends a thumbs up. “Sounds good! See you two--or at least I’ll see Remus and pretend to see Mr. Author--on the other side!”

And with that, Lysander transplanted himself to a remote corner of the Well to watch and wait.

* * *

Augustus Rookwood ceased to exist.

He hadn’t known what to expect when the Dark Lord summoned him into his chambers with a task to perform, but experiencing memory overload and then being transported to a realm of nothingness was definitely not it.

Augustus took stock of his situation. He remembered spending the last decade or so in the walls of Azkaban but just as fresh were the memories of working for Voldemort in the 1960s. The biggest discrepancy was that only the younger part of himself remembered the incident with Bode and the acute universal amnesia. And as much as he’d like to blame amnesia for his problems, Augustus was not the kind of wizard who merely accepted the easiest answer to think of.

Actually, this was far more likely to be related to that werewolf Dumbledore and the others had been talking about--R.J., he thought it was--who had vanished off the face of the Earth more than once. So whatever had happened to Augustus, it was in all likelihood reversible. That was comforting. Now he just had to find someone who knew the way to get out of here.

In thinking about finding help, a blond man appeared before him. His first instinct was that it was a Malfoy, but this particular man had eyes that were too wide and expressive to be any of that clan. He didn’t seem the type to be a Death Eater--not with that carefree grin--but it wasn’t as if Augustus was identifiable as a follower of the Dark Lord at first glance either.

“Hello!” the man said, shaking Augustus’ hand. “I’m Lysander Scamander. Welcome to the Well of Lost Plots! You know the riddle ‘where do Vanished objects go’? This is the answer when you’re talking about people, at least in a metafictional context. Do you remember how you got here? I’ve detected three uses of the Reintegration function in recent memory but you were the only person to actually show up. And by ‘recent’ I can’t really give you any hard numbers since we don’t have time here. What year do you remember it being?”

“I suppose you would say that I was ‘reintegrated’ in 1965,” Augustus replied as he tried to process everything this Scamander had told him. Even for an Unspeakable, this was more than a little strange. But at the very least vanishings, metafictionality (whatever that meant), and flexible time were all a part of it. As long as he kept listening without saying too much, he ought to be able to get his bearings.

“Right around when Remus came back, that’s good to know,” Scamander mused to himself.

“'Remus'?” Augustus prompted.

“Wait, he probably never used the name,” Scamander corrected himself. “He was going by R.J. Thewlis last. Ring any bells?”

“The werewolf?” Augustus asked, far too grateful for having eavesdropped on that conversation since it made him seem more knowledgeable than he actually was. “From what I’ve gathered, he made quite a mess of things when he disappeared.”

“A lost hour isn't all that bad,” Scamander said. “You probably couldn't have discovered this, but R.J. was having his mind read by Voldemort at the time. Better that he came here and everyone forget the last hour than let that psychopath know everything.”

'That psychopath' happened to be someone Augustus would follow to the ends of the Earth, but he opted to not reveal that fact to one so obviously biased. “And now that we are 'here', how might we return to our world?”

“That’s the hard part,” Scamander said. “No one leaves the Well, except that once with Remus, and he was only able to go back to your universe through extreme abuse of a loophole. That loophole has since been closed. But don’t lose hope just yet. We _think_ we’ve got a way of establishing communication between here and there, though. And as much as the others think otherwise, I’m not sure if only Remus’ book was affected by this. We might as well _try_ some other books, am I right? You’re from 1965; have you written any books--and not necessarily books, other written materials might work too--that someone else might decide to read? I’m working under the hypothesis that writing in your own book here could deface the copy there.”

Most of what Augustus had written in his life was either a school assignment or a work report--neither of which were the sorts of things that anyone would be likely to pick up and re-read anytime soon. But there was _one_ book that might work. “Would an Unspeakable log book do the trick?” he asked. Certainly it would continue to be updated by some other poor intern after Augustus’ unexpected departure.

Scamander lit up. “You’re an Unspeakable? No way, so am I! Thank the interloper for throwing us a bone! I’ve been spending so much of my non-existent time around Remus and our author friend--and they are wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes you need Mysteries alumni to really get the weird things, you know? Oh! What is it like to have Pluto still be a planet? My mum ended up destroying the model in the Space Chamber when running away from Death Eaters, and of course they fixed it later but then they _destroyed it again_ before I could join up because Muggles decided to pretend it didn’t exist anymore. Am I talking too fast? I guess Death Eaters probably still aren’t common knowledge in 1965.”

“I think I’ve heard of them.”

Augustus could have denied it--the Death Eaters were still called the Knights of Walpurgis at that time, so not even the Dark Lord himself would have known the term--but it’d be better to be vague in case he had to say something contradictory later. As for the incident Scamander described, Augustus guessed that the man--like himself--had acquired memories from a future that had never happened.

But figuring out how to escape took priority. Augustus prompted, “And the log book?”

“Sorry, yes, yes, you’re right. The log book ought to work--they’re certainly sticklers about making sure that _everything_ is recorded so outside-time shouldn’t pass by too much. And I’m not sure which log book you’ll need, so you should just summon it up yourself.”

“Accio log book,” Augustus said. Out of the nothingness of the void, a familiar book flew into his hand.

“I didn’t mean _literally_ summon it,” Scamander said. “Though I guess that that method _does_ work too. In the Well it’s more of a 'I want this to exist, therefore it does'.”

“Good to know,” Augustus said, his mind churning at the possibilities. “And I just pretend the book doesn’t exist to send it back to my world?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’d be more of an automatic update. If what you’re suggesting worked, I could just wish myself back to whence I came. Actually, let me test if that does work real quick,” he said, falling silent for an all-too-short moment. “Ah, nope. Didn’t expect it to. And honestly, the message in books thing isn’t plausible at all--it’s more of a loophole that may or may not have been left open by the interloper that we _think_ hasn’t been noticed by Blair yet, so we should milk it for all its worth, capiche? Just don’t refer to any timey-wimeyness, since that’ll draw Blair’s attention faster than you can say ‘no more books for you’.”

Augustus nodded in acknowledgment as he flipped to the last log he’d recorded. In the margins, he wrote, _I am in the Well of Lost Plots and this is my only way of communicating with the outside world. Please write back._

“How long will it take for answer to appear?” Augustus asked.

Scamander shrugged. “Time isn’t a thing here, remember? We’ve got before and after and--if I'm right-- _lots_ of quantum physics keeping things connected or disconnected. It’s why I’m currently not bringing you to meet Remus--I don’t want whatever temporal aspects from your moment of arrival to accidentally mess up the synchronization between universes while he’s trying to communicate with his dad--you showing up might skip time ahead too far and Remus _really_ needs the uninterrupted real-time hours for what he’s doing to work. Anyway, while we wait for Remus to complete making contact, would you mind telling me what I should call you? I think I forgot to ask earlier--sorry, I do that sometimes.”

“I’m Broderick Bode,” Augustus lied. “Dumbledore tested a spell on me to try and protect my mind from being erased again. It didn’t work and, next thing I know, I’m here.”

Hopefully no one who knew the real Bode would ever be able to call him out on it. At the very least, Scamander didn’t seem to suspect anything.

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, quantum physics. So often science-fiction writers use it to justify anything that looks like magic. Since I’ve got actual magic to work with, I’m not going to let any of my characters get away with using quantum physics as functional technobabble--particularly when they are in a space that is so divorced from natural laws as the Well of Lost Plots (or the JK-verse, to a lesser extent) is. I personally find it more interesting to work within the rules of technobabble derived from fiction as a meta-concept instead of bad science (even if both are equally bogus), so I’ll keep utilizing the former.  
> For the unaware: Schrödinger never killed cats except in a purely hypothetical exercise about quantum superposition (the idea that a particle can be in different states simultaneously, based on its probability of occurring). The observer effect happens because on a sufficiently small scale, bouncing anything (even a photon) off the particle for measurement purposes will affect the results, as most famously seen in the Double-Slit Experiment (and contrary to popular belief, a conscious observer isn’t necessary). Quantum entanglement (also called “spooky action at a distance”) is when two or more very small particles become so intrinsically linked that measuring one particle affects the behavior of the other, regardless of where it is. The uncertainty principle is about how the more precise a position measurement of a particle is, the less precise you can be about the velocity measurement of that particle (and vice versa). Just about everything weird about quantum mechanics happens at a subatomic level, so it having a direct impact on macroscopic beings is extremely unlikely.  
> In other news, I have not forgotten about this story. I know things are slow-going, but I refuse to let the story end until it is properly complete. Given how frequently I've had to scrap everything and start the chapter over, I can't say when you'll get the next update, but I'll remain optimistic that it'll be soon. Stay tuned.
> 
> All my love,  
> pisoprano


End file.
